The Liberation

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘Good luck, Harry. Take care. Watch your back.’

  Harry gave an elegant salute and left. Jake stared at the door for a long moment, then poured himself a brandy and drank it straight down.

  ‘Now,’ he announced, ‘I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘If you lend me the fare, I can catch a train.’

  He sighed. ‘Don’t be difficult, Caterina.’

  ‘I have to go somewhere first. Here in Naples.’

  He frowned. ‘Please, Caterina. It is dangerous for you to go running round the streets of this city like one of those urchins. Last night showed that.’

  Caterina shook her head and watched the room and its bookshelves spin. ‘No, Jake.’ She laughed and was pleased it sounded real. ‘I’ve been granted a week. For one week I am not in danger, so I must use it well. I will accept your offer of a lift, thank you, but I have to see someone first. I’ll come back here and meet you outside in an hour.’

  ‘Who are you meeting?’

  But she was already out the door and running for the streets.

  Caterina watched the shop from across the road for ten minutes but during that time no one went in, and no one came out. Lights shimmered inside but a metal mesh was fitted on the outside of the window, so it was next to impossible to see what was on display unless you were right outside.

  Caterina had to restrain herself, make herself wait and watch. But she didn’t have long and didn’t want a customer to intrude on the scene and spoil her chances.

  Customer?

  She gave a shake of her head. No one had money for the likes of these goods. This was a smart street with elegant buildings boasting what must have been smart shops before the war. Couturier fashion houses, beauty salons, perfumeries and posh little emporia for grooming pampered poodles, but now the shelves were mostly bare and dusty, pockets were empty and poodles eaten. A sense of desolation trickled through the gutters of Naples alongside the cigarette butts and the lost dreams.

  The name in bold gold lettering above the shop told Caterina all she needed to know. Orlando Bartoli. Jeweller. The one whose corpse Harry Fielding told her had been dragged out of the harbour. She entered the shop.

  The girl behind the counter was sharp-eyed and had a look of Mussolini about her. Big square head and a jutting jaw, though she had more hair. It was long and straight and very black. She could be no more than fourteen but was confident behind the counter, as if she’d been standing there for years, guarding the smattering of jewellery on display in the cabinet in front of her, a few brooches, a pendant, a tray of antique rings. Caterina had no doubt that a gun lay somewhere within reach but safely out of sight.

  ‘Buongiorno,’ Caterina greeted her in a friendly manner. ‘Are you Signorina Bartoli?’

  ‘I am.’

  The girl spread her hands to include the shop, implying that she and the jewels came as a package. The place must once have been impressive, when the walls glittered with polished cabinets of precious gems, gold and silverware, the badges of the wealthy elite of Naples. Now all but one showcase held shoes, brand new, soft shiny leather that soaked up the light. New shoes were like gold-dust in this stricken city.

  ‘Could I speak with your mother, signorina?’

  The girl’s gaze raked up and down Caterina’s shabby grey dress and landed on her shoes. ‘Mamma,’ she called out, without shifting her eyes from her customer.

  A door at the back opened and a woman stepped into the shop, fair where her daughter was dark, and small-featured. Both were clad in the dense black of mourning. She welcomed Caterina with a surprised smile, as though unused to customers.

  ‘How can I help you, signorina?’ She had a kind face and was quietly spoken, sadness etched into the lines around her mouth.

  ‘My condolences, Signora Bartoli, on the loss of your husband.’

  The woman pulled the black scarf tighter around her head. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am Caterina Lombardi.’

  The woman’s eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth to silence the sound that struggled from her lips.

  ‘You’re his daughter,’ she whispered.

  ‘I am Antonio Lombardi’s daughter, yes, it’s true.’

  Signora Bartoli’s soft hazel eyes filled with tears as she reached out and clasped Caterina to her ample bosom. ‘Poor little kitten,’ she crooned.

  An intense wave of this woman’s emotions broke over Caterina’s head. To be held like this by a pair of strong caring arms in a way that her own mother never held her, was almost too much, and to her horror a single sob shuddered its way up through her chest.

  ‘Mamma,’ the girl sounded cautious, ‘she may be dangerous. Here to spy on us.’

  ‘Let her spy as much as she wants. There’s nothing to find.’

  Gently Caterina extricated herself from the folds of the pillowy bosom. ‘I am not a danger to you, Signora Bartoli.’

  The woman touched Caterina’s cheek. ‘I know you’re not, bella.’

  ‘I’m here to ask about the table that my father made.’

  ‘You’ll have to stand in the queue then.’

  ‘Who else is questioning you?’

  ‘The police. And others.’ She spat the final word.

  ‘Which others? The Camorra? Or a man with a streak of white in his black hair?’

  ‘Forget them,’ the jeweller’s wife shrugged. ‘I am sorry about the loss of your father. He was a good man. He had a warm heart.’ The woman’s fist thumped her own heart. ‘Like my own Orlando. They were friends. Both good men.’

  ‘Thank you, signora. I always believed my father was a good man. But now I am wondering how well I knew him.’

  ‘Believe your heart, child,’ she said firmly. ‘Always believe your heart.’

  ‘What did you tell the men who came to question you?’

  ‘Nothing. I know nothing. My daughter Delfina knows nothing. My son Edmondo,’ she waved a hand towards the rear door, ‘knows nothing.’

  ‘That’s what you told the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Army Intelligence Officers?’

  The woman’s eyebrows rose. ‘Yes. You know about them too?’

  Caterina would not be put off a second time. ‘The man with the streak of white in his hair and the heavyweight one at his side. Did they come?’

  The woman shuddered theatrically and her daughter came to stand beside her, sliding her arm around her mother’s thick waist. The easy familiarity of the movement touched Caterina. Sweetheart, lost your tongue? Aren’t you going to give your mother a kiss?

  ‘Is it true that you know nothing?’ Caterina asked.

  The woman casually kissed the side of her daughter’s head. ‘Of course not.’

  From behind the counter a glass of Marsala materialised for each of them. Caterina felt it mingle with the earlier brandy and slow her pulse to a more manageable rate. The three of them sat on stools in a triangle with their drinks and Caterina coaxed out of Signora Bartoli what had happened to her husband. It had started with a police knock on the door in the middle of the night. They had forced Bartoli to open his safe – because of a tip-off they said they had received – and they spotted a small unframed painting of the Madonna and Child hidden there, but not before the jeweller snatched out a gun from inside the safe and pumped two bullets into the chest of the chief of police.

  Signora Bartoli wept. Her daughter refilled her glass.

  ‘He ran,’ Delfina said angrily. ‘He ran with the painting and vanished, leaving us with a wounded policeman in our house. Oh Papà, oh Papà . . .’

  Caterina put her arms around the girl and for a while the only sound in the shop was the soft whisper of weeping and murmurs of comfort from Caterina. It was strange, this intimacy with two women she scarcely knew, but something was binding them together, she could feel the strands of it cutting into her flesh. Something strong.

  ‘What made your husband shoot the policeman, Signora? Why would he do such a thing?’
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  The jeweller’s wife brushed a hand across her face, wiping away the sorrow. ‘Orlando was hiding the stolen Tintoretto painting for someone. I don’t know who, so don’t bother asking. He didn’t tell me. But he knew he was a dead man if he lost that valuable painting.’

  A handkerchief came out of a pocket and more silent tears flowed down the woman’s cheeks.

  ‘Papà was afraid,’ Delfina explained. ‘And he was right to be afraid. We don’t know who killed him but it must have been because they were frightened he would betray them if the police took him in for questioning. So he was dumped in the harbour.’

  Signora Bartoli suddenly eyed Caterina carefully. ‘Is that why you are here? Have they come for you?’

  Caterina nodded. ‘But I don’t intend to be dumped in the harbour.’

  Jake was stuck in an argument that was going nowhere. The US Army sergeant had the kind of solid face that reminded Jake of a barn door that had been firmly bolted. Nothing was getting in or out.

  I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not possible.’

  ‘I require a car,’ Jake informed him yet again. ‘A civilian vehicle.’

  ‘Sir, you can sign out a jeep or one of our motorbikes. But no civilian vehicles. It’s against regulations.’

  ‘Soldier, in that shed behind you are at least twenty civilian cars belonging to no one and doing nothing but sitting there gathering dust. Open up at once.’

  The soldier was standing to attention, gaze fixed somewhere around the tip of Jake’s left ear, but with a mutinous hitch to his shoulders he marched across to the vast corrugated shed that sprawled in the burning sunshine. He unlocked the double doors and slid one open. It squealed in protest, and Jake strode inside where an array of assorted cars was huddled together under layers of dust. Some were big bulky machines, others were small and sad, shoved into corners.

  Jake prowled among them and could not resist a smile. He spotted a 1936 Chrysler Airflow, like the one he used to drive at home in Milwaukee a lifetime ago. He stroked its streamlined nose and patted its sloping backside, remembering a day when he’d driven a girl he was dating out onto the edge of the woodland, so she could fly her hawk. The bird reminded him of Caterina. The way she turned her head, the focus she possessed. He recalled the way the hawk’s yellow talons gripped the brown cloth of the seat-back and he suspected that Caterina’s grip would be just as sharp.

  It was tempting to slide behind the three-spoke steering wheel once more, to go back in time to the person he was then. These cars were ones that had been plucked off the streets of Naples, their owners fled or dead. It was stifling in the shed, the metal bodies radiating heat. The interior was dim, but a bright shaft of sunlight fell through the open door and caught the fender of a humble Italian automobile. Jake wandered over. Its headlamp was cracked and its paintwork scratched.

  ‘I’ll take that one,’ he announced.

  ‘Tell me about the jewels,’ Caterina said.

  She noticed a look pass between the two Bartoli women.

  ‘The ones,’ Caterina added, ‘for the table my father was commissioned to make.’

  Still no response.

  ‘Where did they come from?’

  ‘From Count di Marco.’

  That came as no surprise.

  ‘My Orlando went across to Capri, fool that he was, and returned with a box wrapped in a goatskin. It was full of emeralds and sapphires and diamonds so big they could poke your eye out.’ She paused and dragged a hand across her mouth, then wiped the back of it on her black skirt as if the words tasted sour. ‘The diamonds had dried blood on them. None of the jewels was new. I washed each one of them with my own hands to remove the dirt, and the water turned red.’ She stared at her fingers accusingly.

  ‘Have you any idea where the table is now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Signora, why do you tell me all this? I am a stranger to you.’

  A look of surprise crossed the woman’s lined face, but it was Delfina, her daughter, who answered.

  ‘Because they were blood brothers, your papà and my papà. That makes you family.’

  ‘Blood brothers?’

  She pictured them, two Italian men, each drawing a knife across his palm, blood slithering to the stone floor. Clasping hands, mingling their blood. A blood brother was held closer than family.

  But why? What made them do it?

  A thought slid into her head. ‘Have you heard of the Caesar Club?’ she asked.

  Again it was the young girl who answered. ‘Yes, of course. Papà and your father both belonged to it. Its members meet in Naples.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  The mother gave a snort of indulgence, her heavy bosom rising alarmingly. ‘They drink and talk men’s talk, and they think they make the world turn around their little fingers.’

  ‘Why do they think that?’

  ‘Because they are men, and men are fools.’

  ‘Are all the members of the club blood brothers?’

  But at that precise moment the door at the rear of the shop swung open and a tall young man walked in, head held at an arrogant angle, slender hips leading the way. He was clearly the brother of the girl. He possessed the same face, but on him it looked good, with the same intelligent eyes. He wore a coarse brown apron and held a half-finished black shoe dangling from one hand, the smell of oil on his fingers.

  ‘Mamma, I . . .’

  But it was not the young cobbler who attracted Caterina’s attention, it was the other person inside the back room. He was seated at a table, surrounded by leather skins, his head turned to look into the interior of the shop. At the sight of Caterina, his mouth fell open.

  ‘Carlo!’ she exclaimed.

  She felt the small hairs on her bare arms rise in shock. It was Carlo Cavaleri, her childhood friend and a flush was rising up his handsome cheeks, a curved cobbler’s blade in his hand.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Caterina asked.

  ‘I work here.’

  ‘I thought you worked at your uncle’s garage.’

  Carlo nodded. ‘You thought right. But I hate engines and grease and being yelled at by Uncle Vito. So on my days off, I come here to learn a new trade.’

  Signora Bartoli bundled her son back into the workroom and shut the door on them.

  ‘They are good boys, those two,’ she said. ‘Fine cobblers.’

  She walked over to one of the shelves where their handiwork was on display and selected a pair of ladies’ shoes that were the colour of ripe figs, not black, but not quite purple. ‘These should fit,’ she said and thrust them into Caterina’s arms. ‘Put them on.’

  ‘No,’ Caterina protested. ‘They are too valuable to give away.’

  The woman gave a gentle tap to Caterina’s cheek. ‘Do as you’re told. You are family.’

  ‘Then tell me,’ Caterina said, ‘about Drago Vincelli.’

  ‘Drago,’ the signora snapped. ‘Stay away from that evil man. Years ago he used to be a good man. He fought against Mussolini alongside your father and my Orlando. But he got greedy. He turned bad and now that the war is over, he is turning others bad too. Stay away from him, I tell you. Enough death in this city. No need for more.’

  Was that true?

  Caterina thought not. One more. There needed to be one more death.

  ‘Where can I find him?’ she asked.

  The woman looked away, mopped her eyes with her handkerchief and cast a quick glance at her daughter who gave the smallest shake of her head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Signora Bartoli stated.

  Caterina stepped forward and entwined a finger into the black sleeve. ‘He is going to kill me if I don’t find him first. Just like he killed your Orlando.’

  ‘Caterina Lombardi, I don’t want you to die.’

  ‘So tell me. For my father’s sake.’

  ‘If you go up against Drago Vincelli, you will end up with your throat cut for certain and I won’t permit that. He has men behind him. Powerful
men. They will not want you spoiling their plans.’ Signora Bartoli’s expression was tearful, but her mouth hardened. ‘So no, I don’t know where to find Drago Vincelli.’

  It was a lie. They all knew it.

  ‘What men?’ Caterina asked quietly. ‘What plans?’

  ‘Enough Caterina. Your papà always said you asked too many questions.’ She shook her head in sorrow at the mention of her father.

  But Caterina refused to let go. ‘Who are these powerful men? And what is it they do? Do they organise the stealing and selling of artefacts? Without getting their own fingers dirty?’

  Signora Bartoli turned again to her daughter, but Caterina stepped between them. ‘Is that it, signora? Tell me. Is that what they do? Is that what your Orlando and my papà did?’

  A nod, so faint it was scarcely a nod.

  ‘And is that group of men,’ Caterina continued relentlessly, ‘the Caesar Club?’

  Signora Bartoli wrapped her arms around Caterina’s neck and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Go now,’ the jeweller’s wife whispered. ‘You know too much.’

  But Caterina was certain there was more to know.

  Caterina kicked open the door. She entered the shed.

  She expected nerves to come barrelling at her, but they didn’t. She was calm. No panic. But she had forgotten not one moment of last night, of being hog-tied and humiliated in this filthy scrap of shelter, forced to bargain with her shoes and to lie still among the stench of fish while one boy strutted.

  She pretended she had come back here to find the scugnizzi, pretended even to herself. Not that she really expected them to be here. Their sleeping sacks were gone. They had flown and like wild birds they left no trace of themselves. By daylight she saw the empty fish boxes and discarded ends of tarred rope that lay in the corner. Her hands were steady as she squatted down and tipped a small stone jar of kerosene oil over the boxes, oil for which she had swapped her cut-down US Army plimsolls. It smelled strongly, burning her nostrils. Outside, the harsh cry of seagulls, like voices of the dead, increased her sense of isolation and quickened her pulse.

  She drew out a box of matches from the pocket of the ragged grey dress, removed one match, and struck it. She watched its flame consume the sliver of wood, then threw it.